Problems loading photos

It is weeks past the fire at your facility, but I am lately finding great difficulty loading photos some evenings. Even cropping photos does not seem to help when this occurs. Trying to post 5 photos is sometimes impossible and have to settle for 2 or 3. I have had problems in recent days loading single photos to my Journal. While I seem to be the first to bring up this latest problem I know that others are having similar experiences as there have been comments the past few days on one of the forums I frequent.

Try reducing the size of the images...not cropping. If your images are over 1000 pixels wide, the system automatically resizes them. If you have several at once, it sometimes times out trying to do this. If you do not have a handy resizer in your computer accessories,Google 'free photo resizer' there are a great number on the web that will work great.

I had not had this problem in the past, so I presume it is something at your end, such as a reduction of capactiy to process when traffic to the site is elevated. Thanks for the tip on resizing resources, I will check them out and utilize.

it is pretty annoying that they don't load easily

One of the things the techs are working on is making the uploading instructions clearer. Images that are larger than 1000 pixels tall or wide and/orare in a high-res format have always been hard to upload. And when you compound it by uploading 2, 3, 4 or 5 large files all at once, the system is bound to struggle with it. I edit every photo of mine in Picasa. I crop it and add any enhancements I want, then I save at medium resolution (.jpg format) and 1000 pixels max height/width.

Edited to add, I just uploaded to a new test thread here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1257479/ and did a non-scientific "1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi..." and it took under four seconds for all 5 thumbnails to upload, and as soon as I hit submit, there they were. I really think the problem is file size - my connection to the site is just like every other member's; nothing special or unique about my setup. I don't have 4G or anything more high-octane than what Comcast provides to all their customers.

This message was edited May 11, 2012 8:45 AM

Thank you for starting this Thread, David.

With a plant Swap only a week away (on the Mid Atlantic Forum) we are all sending pictures back and forth
to show what plants look like. It would be close to impossible to have to re size every photo before it is sent.

I did not have any problems sending the 5 images when this first started.
Now even one image takes a full minute. Two took a minute and a half last night.
Three, after about 3-4 minutes, defaulted to the page that lists all the Forums DG has.

Where would one go to find a resizing program on the server? I have IE Firefox, and run Windows XP.

Gita

This program will let you resize images in batches: http://www.picresize.com/
So will this one: http://www.rw-designer.com/picture-resize

Resizing pics is the "neighborly" thing to do when you are sharing them on any website, not just ours.

Not only does it help you upload them faster, but it helps us expand them faster when someone clicks on them. And threads won't get bogged down as fast if everyone has done their part before uploading.

Also, please be mindful that long threads with lots of photos are a drain on the site. If you are part of an ongoing activity that involves lots of phto-heavy threads, make sure you start a new thread every 100 posts or so.

Gita, there are many free photo editing software packages, including the one that came with your camera if you still have it. Personally, I like PIcasa. It's free, it's pretty easy and when I download the photos from my camera, I send them to Picasa first where I can edit and crop and save.

Once you get in the habit of editing your images, you won't think twice about it - it just becomes part of the process.

Terry and Melody--

Thanks for all your suggestions.
I just got a new camera--Nikon Coolpix 4100. Jill talked me into it....:o)
I have yet to read the manual or watch the tutorial CD's.
My fault for being uninformed....My brain does not process manual-type information too well.
Have to make time to watch the CD's...gardening beckons first.....I am soooo behind!

When I preview my pictures on the camera--it does show me, for ex.18 or...20 jpg. in the upper, left corner.

I DO have Adobe Photoshop--but seldom use it. It seems complicated.

Gita

Photoshop has a pretty big learning curve. I'm guessing the new camera is the culprit...the new cameras have such high resolutions, we're seeing folks trying to upload monstrous images and it is straining the resources. My own camera has 18 megapixels resolution and that is way too big for web use. I resize everything before uploading.

Here's a handy tool that explains megapixels and megabytes: http://web.forret.com/tools/megapixel.asp

To Admin - The point that I see not being addressed is that this problem has become more pronounced of late, so focusing on resizing photos ignores a portion of this issue. Sometimes in the evenings it has become difficult to upload even one photo, and mine have not suddenly become larger due to spring growth. Is there a server overload that needs attention?

Melody---

Looked at the link you posted.......it is beyond my comprehension.
That is all i can tell you.....

I am an old "geezer" and do not understand technical stuff too well.
But--I have others gifts of the mind that many others would not think about.
Most of it falls under one word---"Resourcefulness".....

I will ask people at the Swap to help me out on this--on my level of understanding.....
And--after the Swap is over--I will try to take the time to look at the CD's that came with my camera.

Someone advised me to---"Just put it on "Auto" and enjoy your new camera.

I guess I owe it to you helpful people to at lease check out some of the re sizing links
you both posted.

David--You are once again "the voice of reason"......

Thanks, Gita

greenthumb99, I asked about our server load on Wednesday's conference call (not because of this, but because a user reported a different problem that we figured was isolated to them, and it was.) She confirmed that is not an issue. My guess is that if it seems it's becoming more pronounced, it is because more people are using the multiple upload option. But when I tested it, it worked fine for the five photos I uploaded. If you have problems uploading a particular photo (or photos), please contact us and we'll arrange to retrieve the images from you and try to replicate the problem.

Terry, doesn't "My guess is that if it seems it's becoming more pronounced, it is because more people are using the multiple upload option" constitute a server overload problem? If more people are using the multiple upload option, the site infrastructure needs to accommodate the increased load. I can find plenty of times when uploading works fine too, but that does not negate the existence of this problem.

There isn't anything in our server stats that indicates there are performance problems. That doesn't mean people haven't occasionally experienced a problem, but in most of those cases, we have determined it is because they were uploading photos that were too large. And we are working on a solution that will address that.

Terry,

I just "cross my fingers " when I hit send after responding to a post especially when I write more than a sentence or two. Too many of my posts have just disapeared and I have to start over. But, I have adapted my postings here by writing out my post and then opening a second connection to same thread I'm responding to and copying and pasting my original post in second reply box. I hit send for second reply box and if it doesn't take, I still have my original to work from.

User frustrating rather than user friendly. Weeds out the less than determined or casual or beginning poster, and certainly has diminished my participation here where some sort of knowledge or experience based response is asked for or given.

Pictures help convey specifics and I was excited to learn we finally have multi pic option. But, frankly Terry et al, when I post one or more pics I cross the fingers on both hands!! And the pics I have been posting since multi pics came to be, have been reposts of old pics so not a size issue.

I agree with Greenthumb, that certain times of day are better than others for posting (early am) and posts to longer threads are more "iffy

Do your server stats have stats or a category for posts that just disappear? Or multiple user attempts to post before success? (I think my cell phone co still tracks 'dropped calls')

And, when might we get the capacity to do multi images with our dmail?

Thanks and Happy Mothers' Day all.

Administration---

I just started a new Thread to ID a problem I am having with my Kwanzan Cherry Tree.

Here is the link. http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/f/pad/all/

First I tried posting all 5 pictures---after a good 5 minutes--it came up blank. Did this at 6:45 PM tonight.

I am glad I have learned by now to c/p my text IF i am attaching pictures. Saves a lot of frustration.
Should NOT have to do this!!!

So I had to opt with sending 3 separate Posts with only 2 pictures attached to each.
Still took a good 2-3 minutes for them to load.

Thought I would let you know this....Since it was a new Thread--there was NO "drag" or "cache" on it by past posts.

How big were my pictures??? I would appreciate knowing that!
I tried the re-sizing links Melody posted--but it did not say what the measurements they were giving were!
Pixels? Size of a picture? What??? It seemed very vague to me--so I gave up trying to understand it.

Gita

Gita, when you open each photo to full size, you can right-click on it and choose to see the image info. I did that: each image is 230-240 mb By comparison, the photos I uploaded as a group of 5 were each about double the size of your photos and the group uploaded in a few seconds.

My guess is that your ISP may throttle connection speeds to conserve bandwidth; if that is the case, we have no control over that.

When you edit a photo, you can reduce its size in two ways: the actual size (in pixels) of the image. Ideal image size is 480x640 or 800x600.

The second way to affect the size of the file is the resolution. Typically, editing software will let you specify resolution usually something like high, normal, low, automatic. Normal or automatic is a good choice for online images. You want/need high-res mainly for images that are being printed, especially on anything larger than 8x10 inches.

Thank you Terry---

I did not know about the right-clicking for "image info". I will check that out...
Still--when the multi-picture posting first started--I had NO problems at all.

As greenthumb has said--this problem reared its head more--of late.
I accept that more people are using it--but if we cannot load the 5 pictures at one time--
then this wonderful feature is useless.

Gita

We are working on some tools that will at least inform people on the front end to check file size, and/or may automatically check file size before you upload and reject too-big image files. (We're looking at both options, and hopefully we can implement both.) However, at this point we don't have any statistical evidence that points to a pattern or problem with our servers: the reports we've received appear to be isolated incidents that we can't replicate. Most likely they are problems with file size and/or the speed of each person's online connection..

just strange it used to work just fine.. and I didn't change cameras or my internet provider .. and now there is a problem

When you encounter an upload problem, the best thing to do is use the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of the page. We will give you an email address to send the photo(s) you tried to upload to us, and we will attempt to replicate the problem.

Terry, It sounds to me like there is a problem with the basic approach that was implemented when the "multiple" pics feature was added. Perhaps your tech team should rethink how that was implemented and give some "out-of-the-box" thinking to alternate approaches. Something may fall out of that exploration that would help. Come at the problem from different directions.

Site users should not have to worry about technical details, such as resizing before uploading. This issue will only get worse, with higher bandwidth internet connections, greater camera resolution and ever more present cameras. You should not make the users find or employ work-arounds. Different users will have different skill sets and there will be unequal and unpleasant user experience with DG.

As best we can tell, the problems have as much - or more - to do with the user's connection and transmission speed than anything else and that places the onus on each of us to learn the ins and outs of our cameras and set our cameras to take smaller pics or resize them as a matter of course. Both digitals and DSLRs have become more powerful, and increasingly sophisticated, too, which is good for taking better pictures, but it means we all have more to learn :-)

Terry, I agree that re-sizing photos makes a great difference in site performance and I am exercising this strategy now. Thanks! The issue remains that members using their same cameras, computers and internet providers have been periodically experiecing more difficulties of late. which would seem to be a site processing capacity factor as it occurs during times of heavy traffic.

And I wish I could say that we are seeing statistical evidence that would confirm the anecdotal information we've received, but we're not. Heavy traffic within everyone's ISPs has a bearing, and we have no way of knowing when traffic spikes for them, or how the providers regulate the load on their systems.

Terri,

What sort of statistical data do you collect that would qualify as evidence for the recurrent problems with loading pictures (anecdotally of any size) or posting text (anecdotally more than 3-4 line responses) or timing out or being redirected when posting to this site by various users at various connection speeds and times and various ISP and browsers in use. Annecdotally, many have reported doing nothing different on our ends but the rate of "problems" on this site increasing?

As a user here I and others see this problem as more wide spread than you may see by handling things on a case by case recreation of an individual problem . We users see it across the site and a number of "me toos!" can be found on various forums and threads long or short, with or with out photos or over a hundred posts.

If you wish us to report any problems via contact us at bottom of each page, please give us a specific tag to use so that our individual problems can be considered together and perhaps reach the statistically significant level for them all to be addressed.

And I agree with krowten "
Site users should not have to worry about technical details, such as resizing before uploading. This issue will only get worse, with higher bandwidth internet connections, greater camera resolution and ever more present cameras. You should not make the users find or employ work-arounds. Different users will have different skill sets and there will be unequal and unpleasant user experience with DG."

The statistical information collected shows usage across the entire site and is monitored by our technical team, although I don't see it.

If you can point me to threads where others are reporting problems, we will collect the details and use it to try to paint a broader picture. Keep in mind, though, we are serving thousands of subscribers, hundreds of thousands of members and over a million visitors a month, so even several reports of problems are still small in the larger context and possibly invisible in the statistical logs. (Big to the users experiencing them, but it isn't always easy or even possible for us to see a pattern, and thus far we haven't been able to replicate the problem - or get users to send us the files that failed to load when we ask for them :-)

With that said, on our conference call today we discussed some changes to the upload that will give members immediate feedback with their files are too large, AND look at what we can do system-wise to automatically reduce the file size to make it easier on everyone.

Terri. Thanks for your quick response and the opportunity to shed some light on a possible pattern of frustrating upload problems we out here encounter but don't show up in there !

The easiest examples for me to refer you to are all from the Mid Atlantic Gardening Forum. I will start with these and add others as I refind them. Let me know if these are in a form you can use. Thanks.

Example 1
Today at about 11:10 am I tried to post three pics to this thread (http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1259327/#new ) but was unsucessful after 2-3 minutes wait after send. So I went to this thread (http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1261516/) and attempted to post the same three pics. After another 2-3 min wait it did post. I returned to the unsuccessfully posted to thread and tried to post again and was successful after under 2 min wait. Took about 20 min to make two posts w pics which I completed about 11:30.

Then I went on to read entries in another thread and came across this post made in the same time frame as my extended postting rigors:

______________________________________________________

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1261201/#new


May 30, 2012
11:32 AM

Post #9144826

Quote
I have twice drafted a long response only to have it eaten by Internet Explorer (I know, Foxfire and Chrome work better but they don't play nice with my office software). I have to get back to work, so I'll respond later!

The first thread you pointed to has over 250 posts and at a glance, I'd say well over 100 pictures. Not knowing the size of what you were trying to upload, you're pushing a lot of "water" both ways through the hosepipe :-) We have always recommended that our members start new threads around the 100-150 post mark, especially if the thread is photo-intensive. The second question is, what size are your photos? And what type of connection are you on? We can control some things, but we can't control for a user's connection speed. If you'd like I can give you an email address to send the original pictures to and I'll try to replicate your problem.

Example 2

Again,in the Mid Atlantic Gardening Forum we just completed a well-attended plant swap (50 plus people and hundreds of plants). In the seven threads leading up to the swap there are numerous examples of "upload" problems which prompted Greenthumb to post here to you re the increase in such problems.

After the swap we were all looking forward to sharing our pictures and memories of the swap but from the beginning of this thread http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1259327/#top uploading and posting problems are evident from the twelfth post where there are two pics per post rather than the five wished for and attempted. It took one person 46 minutes and 29 posts to share 56 pictures. finally being reduced to a single picture per post rather than the long awaited feature of being able to upload up to five images.

post 9130881 "tired of problem"
post9130912 "slow upload"
post 9138956 took poster 28 min and 12 posts to post 24 pics at 2;28 am!

Terri, My point is that my first attempt to post to least photo intensive thread (of well under 100 posts) failed, while my second attempt on photo intensive thread succeeded. After which another attempt to post to least posted to thread succeeded. Shouldn't this have been the other way around?

No matter, because my second point goes to the reliability or lack there of of being able to reply to threads here whether short or long, photo intensive or not with my own reply, short or long, photo intensive or not. The hose pipe handled the pushing twice but not each time I and the other poster attempted to post.

By the way, other than this thread started by Greenthumb, I have never heard of the recommendation to keep our threads at 100-150 posts particularly if photo intensive. Been here awhile now and I thought limiting # of posts to threads was a convenience so as to not have to read thru 200 posts to find the info you want. If this is general knowledge around here, how was I supposed to learn or hear about it. Same for photo sizing ......Glad your conference call is cooking up some help with that piece.

Off to learn all I can about connection speeds and pushing water both ways through the hose.

Can you describe exactly what happens when you cannot reply to a thread? We'll need a step-by-step to know what you did, and where in order to try to replicate it. It's not a problem I've personally experienced, so I'm afraid I am at a loss to try to give you any tips or pointers to troubleshoot.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=9138956 doesn't appear to be the correct post number - I went back a few and ahead a few and didn't see what you were referring to.

As to the photos, if you are referring to Bec_No_Va's photos, it appears that most of them posted within a minute or two of each other - in some cases, more than two posts (with two photos each) uploaded in the same minute. Given that it takes a few seconds and clicks to go find the photos and type text and then upload, that doesn't seem unreasonable. If there was a hitch in uploading more than 2 at a time, I'm afraid I didn't see that in skimming the conversation (but I didn't take time to read them all.)

If/when you experience a problem, the very best thing you can do is to

1) try a second time and then if the problem continues;
2) stop what you're doing, hit the "contact us" link, tell us where you're trying to post, and how many photos, and then make arrangements to send the photos to us to try to replicate. We may need certain information from you including the browser and operating system you're using, what type of connection you have, etc.

Without those details we don't have a way to try to re-create and solve the issue.

I haven't been able to send a photo to any threads for several days even trying different times of the day. On the other hand, I've had no consistent trouble sending to my journal, or even sending a single image to plant-files. Nothing has changed in my camera and I have been sending picture posts to the forums for over a year. Some of the threads I am sending to are fairly are long and have multipe photos, but this was also true with a thread of only about 100 entries. Usually, up until a few days ago, I've had no trouble sending three photos. I will try changing relolution size as you suggest, when I have time, which might be a long time from now. I am not as quick at learning computer applications as my teenage kids are.

I thought the servers usually changed the resolution, so I'm puzzled that I have to do this manually now. Since early June is a big bloom period, I am suspecious that I am timing out because there are so many posts going into Dave's Garden. Terry wrote of not having had this problem, so I hope you take this in the spirit it's intended--to share information.

The system does downsize your photos if they are larger than 1000 pixels. However, the speed of that process can be affected by how much bigger your photos are than the 1000 pixel limit (and the resolution, which is not changed by our system). We have not done anything different to the servers in the past several days. May is typically our busiest month in terms of traffic. (I can't tell you for sure what month we have the most photos uploaded, though.)

Here is another Thread (from the Computer Forum) dealing with these same issues.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1250843/

Gita I posted to that one back in May so it's on my list of watched threads. We are working on a solution that will hopefully reduce the wait time to resize photos, and give users uploading large photos an alert so they can stop and resize the image themselves if they would prefer to do that.

Terry,

David's post (link above) seems to be pretty dormant. People may have found other ways of coping.

I have set my camera "image Mode" on 5m. My ISO camera setting is on "Auto".
Not sure what all that means.....I have noticed a slight improvement in my picture loading.

I have not yet tried to upload 5 pictures. i should. Three go pretty good....like 20 seconds or so.

Gita

#1 and #2--my two Red Epis in bloom. Blowing me away!
#3--Baltimore's National Aquarium at our Inner Harbor.

edited to time the loading of these. 58 seconds to load.
Can't say that they were all taken at the 5m setting.

This message was edited Jul 6, 2012 12:46 PM

Contacted Admin re problems posting today for over 30 mins. No pics, just text. I made 9 separate attempts to post on three different forums at DG, including this one. Made no difference if I hit preview or send, the result was "waiting on DG.com.

Here is a copy of what I sent to admin:

Post was finally logged about 11:57 in Mid Atlantic forum # 9203821

I am on dial up, MAC os 10.4, and use an older version of Firefox 2.002.
connected at 50667 bps.

I had no trouble while waiting for DG site to take this post, posting this same message to other sites as a test.

Throughout the over 30 mins of waiting for this post to take on DG, I was able to download and read some threads in between posting attemps.

In other words, there was nothing going in or out of my computer while I was posting this post ie, I wasn't tying up my own line!

Hi I am not able to post a photo to Birdfiles either, I have had several tries over the last 2 days ??